Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Three more children succumbed to the killer Japanese encephalitis virus Monday, taking the toll in eastern Uttar Pradesh to 332, officials said.

“Of these, 305 are children and 27 adults,” an official spokesman told IANS.

As many as 1,942 cases of Japanese encephalitis were detected during the current monsoon season, when the virus spreads, the spokesman added.

The districts to be affected by the disease were Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, and Siddharth Nagar, he said.

K.P. Kushwaha, who heads the encephalitis unit at the BR Medical College in Gorakhpur that has become the nodal centre for dealing with JE said that they also received a lot of patients from neighbouring Bihar.

As per hospital records, about 250 patients admitted over the past two months were from Bihar.